10mm Fantasy

SO seeing all the warmaster armies that day, I did my best to entice the KoW players amongst those there to play 10mm KoW.

The prompted me to review bases and set ups using what i had calc’d and published previously a few years ago, and I had some fresh thoughts.

10mm sized bases should be 2.5 times smaller than the standard game, so a troop base – arguably the building block of all units is technically 40mm x 15mm – so, while i have been basing all my units on washers as individuals, this means that for me a troop is 3 minis given just what fits on the bases.

However, I was accidently sent a unit of dwarves kept as strips, rather than as individuals – annoying but gave me a chance to experiment. two strips will fit on a 40x15mm base – a bit snug, but they do fit. This means that I could go for the easy option of keeping units as such, basing them on the smaller bases as std, and then putting those blocks on 40x20mm thanks to mag sheets or something to make them warmaster sized.  They’d look more “impressive” and immersive – a regiment would look like a regiment rather than a couple of dudes – something i always disliked about warhammer fantasy anyway.

With Cav its a little trickier as you need to have your warmaster cav facing the “wrong way” towards the narrow edge. Now using some vampire knights as an experiment they will fit on 20x20mm so I could create the warmaster sizes easily enough – I might have to experiment to make sure the lances allow them to rank correctly, but otherwise we’re all set. For KoW, I can only really fit 2 minis per troop due to the enlarged washer sizes, 3 if I balance a middle mini on the bases of its fellows. Using the 20×20 bases I increase this to 4, and if I use some 10x20mm bases I can even fit this on a 50mmx20mm as if a proper KoW troop.

Now, I am not going to throw away everything I already have, but for future additions I don’t know which to choose. The main benefits of the current scheme is that it means that a warmaster reg is somewhere between 9 and 16 minis so 1 std 3D print gives me 2 really – even if I max it means when I inventively break some of the little prints I can shrug and not care as much (well I can tell myself i can shrug and not care as I’m not currently prepping any!).

There is something “nice” though of the ranked units – they look more impressive, capturing the essence that you are commanding armies. I am making the assumption that non of the strips have any overhang so they can be ranked that closely.

Attached are some pics of the unit examples to show the logic. Again work in progress, but curious to hear peoples thoughts. I possibly wont change anything –  I have too many minis already as singles either metals or 3D prints to rank them up, but I keep eyeing up ratmen…

So with my first 1000 pts arrayed a group of us met at a near by FLGS for a day of warmaster.

In prep I had re-read the rules and loved the interesting fact that my Slann general has a command of 0 yay me!

So there were a few of us playing and we were met by another chap who had been playing Warmaster since the first ed and he acted as a kind of guru for our initial games.

In the first game my friends faced off Wood Elves v Tomb Kings. The game was fairly tight in the main before the wood elves were brought down.

I plays second and I started off playing someone who hadn’t brought his army as he had only been given a short time, but as he is another tomb kings player he borrowed the tomb kings force. When his time was up he was replaced by someone we had enticed during the day (came for a card game, stayed for the tiny toy soldiers I believe).

Thanks to some questionable general decisions, bad dice rolls, and a lot of coaching  by William, I was pretty much wiped which was a shame, but still a good days gaming had by all.

SO first impressions, I liked it on the main, loved the chance to play with some toys that don’t get to come out that often. The rules are ok, some interesting quirks and flavour points, something that shows why it has been around for so long.

As usual, trying to meander my way through it wasn’t a great approach, but most of us were all in a similar level of experience so it shouldn’t have been that much of a disadvantage. I should have made more use of William, rather than just trying to go my own way. While he was a great help and good company,  it did feel at time William was playing both sides himself  and we were just rolling the dice, so I wonder how the games would have gone if left to our own devices.

I am not sure how I feel about some things – the game did seem to favour Horde armies   – the disadvantages of crappy units like skeleton didn’t seem enough of a handicap when up against the more elite forces or elves and Lizardmen. Its also… unfortunate that as such an established game there are staples or “std” lists that appeared to be taken. For example when I mentioned I had temple guard at home i was advised that for the additional points they weren’t worth it so no one takes them. I was told similar things about chaos knights (might have been warriors, its been a week or two). These are one of the toughest units in the game but no one takes them as for the points you can spawn several units of marauders that ultimately do more damage. How true these things are up for debate, and I haven’t tested it myself but seemed to make sense, just a shame that the lack of balance is that stark – it is a GW game however! I am aware that i can do and field whatever i like, and lets face it for readers of my other poorly updated projects will know that my win rate is pretty shite anyway!

I look forwards to getting it back on the table top, prob need a few other games under my belt before I can draw a better view, but at least I am happy to give it a go

So here is my 1000pts for warmaster. its obviously a work in progress but then thats most of my armies!

So I wasn’t planning on picking up the lizards so soon… I was toying with a couple of ideas, and some chaps at the local club mentioned they were going to be trying warmaster revolution… so here we are.

I stuck with the Lizards rather than the rest as I know where they all were and was hoping some of these would be relatively quick to crash out.

Now a sensible person would maybe complete what they had started and try and “finish” whole units at a time… but where’s the fun in that! I started on my Kroxigors… and then I had to put them to the side due to life and then spent some time getting my skinks and saurus warriors based – keeping to the c10mm washers as a base as I have with others, (more on that later).

On basing, I made a “design” choice to use a pot of premixed plaster I had knocking about.

Now dear reader I don’t know if you have ever spent a Saturday night trying to get a small “ring” of plaster to stick to c30 tiny models on washers.. its not fun… but that’s the choice I have made for this army and by Jove that’s what I’m sticking with 🙁

Well, where does the time go!

To think the last time I updated this, I only had 1 child, Covid hadn’t hit, we were still in our old house, I was probably 30kgs lighter, etc etc

Anyway, last year (yeah, all over the continuum with this), I accidently bought a starter lizardmen army… increasing the number of unpainted armies again.

I started painting some of the cold ones, and got relatively far until some genius decided to add a shelf to “my” hobby space. As a community announcement ALWAYS check where plug sockets are before drilling, as you may think that cables would have been taken from the floor upwards (on a ground floor room), its not always the case. So the minis and the rest o the room got packed down until the wires could be repaid and the room subsequently repainted…

TMy last bit of procrastination is a look at Oathmark…

I picked this up as part of my desire to own as many rulebooks as possible. Looks interesting and gave me an added incentive to look at my 28mm Kow Dwarves…

Ok, so lets group these together as the concept is the same. The origin of the Dwarf and gobbo models was to play KoW in 10mm.

The first thought was to simply half the base areas and go for that. This would require bases 50x40mm for regiments. For large Inf or Cav this would be 65x25mm for troops.

However, I happened to own quite a few 40x30m bases which is 40% of the “regulation” sizes (ok the depth should be 32mm but aint nobody got time for that!). This makes Large inf/Cav being a 50x20mm which is lucky as I happened to have a few spare.

What I will state is that these will not be true model counts. The reason for this is often the models are not designed to be ranked up in the same “regimented” fashion. I think alot of these ranges will have been orignially aimed at the Hordes and Heroes rulesets where people were a littly free-er – I mean in KoW you are allowed to be fairly relaxed about it anyway if you choose to but I felt it was worth to mention.

So since I bought the models I have not done alot with the idea. I blue tacked some units on the bases using the 50mm frontage idea for a couple of games and it worked fine.

So looking at Oathmark, the Frontages for the “recommended” scale would be 125mm, which gives a c60mm fromtage at half sizes. It just so happened that the infantry washers I have been using are 12mm in diameter and as we all know 5 (being the width of Oathmark units in models) x 12mm = 60mm, so models I do for this (provided they are either human, dwarf, green skin or elf will do!

The fly in the ointment is Cav. I can only fit 3 models to a base with these guys so either I source some steel rectangle bases, or I use tiny dice on the base to so the 4th and 5th lads. Not ideal but does save mixing base types up.

so I have cut up some magnet paper into the required sizes, and from somewhere found some thicker mount board or something similar for support. I would be more specific but it is a random piece I squirrelled away for such an opportunity.

And so finally some pics. I have used some of the undead as stand ins for the time being but the principal is the same.

Right… no more dilydallying… time to go back to painting… tomorrow, I promise…

WoE Knights

Mounted Lord Knight with lances (128 + 3) 131 pts

Court Wizard with 2nd spell (55+10) 65 pts

Knights on warhorses with lances (96+3) 99 pts

Archers with longbows and swords (67+5+10) 82 pts

Foot Retainers with 4 additional (72+48) pts

Total 497 pts

I am not going to compile a Saga Army at this juncture as I have a lack of “interesting” units to add in – as in I can easily do levy, fighters and elites, but lack suitable creatures to bring in some flavour.

This should also allow me to get the WoE army “done” with what is already part painted and then go back to Dwarves as either way I need to do some preparation work… time will tell.

So, as I said earlier my Dwarf lists were ready, they are my fantasy army of choice so nothing could get in my way…

Then on having a look in our storage unit for a cot I found these

They are some Kallistra medieval bits I bought years ago (Uni era I believe) as I was going to make generic armies focused on particular colours either for easier civil war stuff (reds v blues v greens etc) or group them together for something larger than DBA.

As you can see (apologies for any colour blind amongst you) these are my red forces.

They also by chance, happen to come to about 500 pts of WoE! I need to find a suitable 10mm Wizzard which the current struggle but one thing at a time!

Given this find, me unfortunately it’s good bye Dwarves and hello Good Sir Robin! I for the time being can sub in my Dwarves wiz to fill the gap unless a lil chap turns up who is better suited.

Army lists are still being finalised but should be up soon.

WoE Dwarves:

Dwarf Lord – 87pts

Rune Smith +2nd Spell – (81+10) 91pts

2x Warriors (std 5 lads) – 100pts x2

Handgunners + medium armour (110+10) 120 pts

498 pts

(caveat – since I have been trying to type this since I posted the undeads I have resulted in typing this on lunch without the rule book to hand my maths might be out!)

Saga Dwarves (Lords of the Underearth)

Warlord – Free (From above)

Hero – 0.5pts (Need 1 additional model from above)

Wizzard – 1pt (From abrove)

Cannon – 0.5pts ((add 1 cannon and crew)

x2 Warriors with Hand weapons 16 figs (10 from above, add 6) 2pts

Warriors with handguns 8 figs (5 from above plus 3) 1 pt

x2 Hearthguard 8 figs (need) 2pts

Titan (somewhere I possess a 10mm Earth Elemental… somewhere) 1pt

Total 8 pts

So these are my logics for the dwarves. To cater for Oathmark at the time being I will round these amounts up to multiples of 5 so that should be 3 rule sets 1 group of models 🙂

So I had my plan, I have the models… what could I get distracted with now…

Okyk, at Gerry’s request here are my logics.

What I’ll do is list my WoE base lists first, and where I have them, add Saga to the list after that.

I have been adding to updates over the past couple of days posts due to pics being on different devices so will prob update them so there is some coherence, whilst also checking my maths as some of these lists were raised a year ago!

So firstly the undead: WoE

Necromancer, level 2 second spell (81+25+10) 116

Archers, 5 additional skellies, crossbows (67+55+10) 132 (nb when I ordered the models, I got 5 with bows and 5 with crossbows, so not wysiwyg but that’s life)

Skeleton Riders (72) 72 (likewise half the lads are with swords, half are with spears/lances in actuality so I have options)

2x Warrior (57) 57 each (sword/club armed)

1x Warrior, 1 additional skellie (57+9) 66 (with spears)

500 pts

Undead: Saga

Warlord on flappy beast (no more info for now but I have the bits I need) 0 pts

Or

Necromancer from above 0 pts

Dark Knight 1/2 pt

Either a sorcerer or Scourge (flappy) depending on Warlord choice 1 pt either way

Mindless 1 pt (I need to recount to see if I have the whole 20. Currently based, not undercoated)

Hearthguard x 3 (12 models) (will be represented by “Spirits, based, not undercoated) 3 pts

mounted Hearthguard (6 models) 1.5 pts (from above)

2 warriors (16 models) 2pts (from above)

9 pts total

So paint plan wise I am fairly happy as all the boney elements are sans the theoretical workbench so all is good.

I’m not especially happy with spirit stand ins for Hearthguard, but seeing as to my knowledge know-one makes armoured undead in 10mm they’ll be fine!

So, with my paints at work, what to do with the time at home I would normally think about painting… dishes, ironing, spending time with the wife and kids….?

Nah, let’s plan more armies!

Yes armies… not army. My first thought was my Dwarves. I had the models set aside from some play testing I did so that seemed like an obvious and simple choice… BORING!

Well, not quite, but throughout this projects life I am aware there is another warband scale game that’s quite popular, I believe Lloyd and Gerry have taken the odd look at it as well… Saga!

So the logic is let’s “complete” an army for all systems as best we can from the start, so I took my 500pts if WoE, and worked out from what I own, (and can hopefully find) what else I would need to bring it up to 7-8 pts of saga goodness.

But why stop there… I recently acquired Oathmark… here, rather than point it up, I have decided to just round up all “types” to a multiple of 5 and ta da (I’m going to do a bigger post on Oathmark later onto discuss that and canvas opinions).

I should also observe that Dragon Rampart also came into this view, but as far as I can tell, there is nothing stopping every “unit” being a single model as long as you can mark its health in some way so I currently have no dedicated DR list.

I’ll end this here as dog needs walking and there is clapping to be done! If peeps are interested in the list/meta side of it, let me know and I can stick them up for you all to work out how to defeat me!

So I have my skellies, I had a plan… and I even managed to fit in an hour or so to put some paint on.

Firstly I experimented with wash…

So it was between light and flesh washes (2 and 3) and thanks to a couple of peeps on Discord flesh wash was settled on. I also found a bottle of neon green…

I liked the effect on the eyes and the necromancer’s staff. Not so much the “mouldy”one!

i also painted some of the cav’s barding in red contrast but then I remembered i’d used a burgundy on the banner an some of the shields so it clashed and wasted the rest of my time!

My next mistake was thinking I would get more done if I took my paints to work as I am still going in daily to do stuff on my lunch break… and the output… 12 minis!

I am fairly happy with how they are turning out. i am now classing these lads as “done” apart from the bases as i want the whole army to have the same “finish”

Just cav and infantry to come…

Blimey, has it really been a year since my last update? So where am I…

My gobbos are half way there… but why would I finish them… or even start on the Dwarves which were my main interest for a force that I had miniatures of… those are both sensible and practical steps for this project…

I bought some undead instead and got them about half-ish done instead!

So, i’m hoping given the nice nakedness of these skellies that it should be a relatively easy win to ease me into this again. Should give me a nice 500 Pts of walking bones. I also have some zombies and ghosts/wraiths depending on paint scheme but that for phase 2!

Now that year end and other work crap is settling down I figured I would see where I got to with this. Here are the pics of where I got to so far.

I did start trying to paint all the flesh, and then all the cloaks etc, but as I find sitting down to paint a chore I changed my mind and started to focus in.

To that end am focusing on getting the wiz finished, and need advice… what would be a good contrasting colour for the gem at the top of staff be, and should I attempt light sourcing as well (would be my first time)?

Answers on a post card and my thanks in advance.

Almost forgot, I also found a 10mm tower I got 3D printed from some chap on eBay (I forget his name, apologies). I decided to take a look at that as a side project to the main.

Luckily when building my paint station there were all the waste circles of mdf which would make great bases for things…

I have used one of the 2 bigger ones and so far super glued the two together and smothered the base in watered down pva. Now it’s just drying time!

So, I have started with Trolls, because, why not!

Up to last Friday i had just block coloured the beasts and smeared strong tone wash, followed by a wash consistency army green – maybe slightly to water-ery but heyho!

Today I drybrushed the loin-cloths a lighter colour to try and lift the models a bit as they were darker than hoped.

All thats required now are picking out some detail on the clubs, maybe teeth, and maybe even… the eyes. Then on to the Gobbos!

The picks are from Friday (the top two), and two from today (the others)

So… I left off having started basing the figs and having played my first game of WoE. Unfortunately work and a run of other commitments stalled the momentum slightly, and meant that when work did progress it has been done away from picture taking devices so i’ll ramble a bit in case it’s of interest!

Dremeling – I actually dug out my Dremel bought for just such a purpose and brought it to bare on the trolls to remove the basing issue. I only used what came in the original kit (the orange disk one) and I found it did nothing for ages until it took too much off. I think I troll survived intact but no base and the others both lost the best part of a foot (same pose, same foot). I  may be inept, I might have used the wrong tool, or it may be the material as it got hot (and boy did it get hot!) but heyho what’s done is done so how to fix it…

Filling the hole/fixing the errors – So what to do next as even the troll with both feet didn’t have a base to cover the hole in the washer. I had a rubbish idea… one of the side effects of not having my own permanent hobby space is the random shite left in the vicinity and today it helped. A shop tag of thin card had been carelessly left on my desk (probably by me as I am a slob) and so I cut a square big enough to cover the hole and job done. For the footless chaps I cut a smaller bit of card to from a step so they were now the “correct” level that the damage is covered. It also helped the cav as although the bases are thin enough, they are not “level” so are all on a similar tilt. By using thin strips of card I have propped them up like a wobbly table and more or less corrected the issue without having to resort to the Dremel again for now.

All this will be covered by that basing paint stuff in due course.

So the upshot of this waffle is that tonight I undercoated 500 points of gobbos using a cheap airbrush so I can consider painting them. This is significant to me as this is where most of my projects stall so hopefully using this tool will enable me to actually complete an army…

Below are the undercoated minis. You can see the card still to get an idea of what I mean. Also included is a picture of my faithless warhound who kept me company and looked very disappointed not to be “helping”.

TTFN

Had a first game last night having hurriedly white/blue tacked minis to washers (would you believe the holes make that quite annoying!)

Had a lot of fun, I did have concerns that the gobbos would be underpowered but the Dwarves under my control were wiped almost to a beard – am sure it was caused by the hunger from a delayed pizza delivery rather than my lack of ability…

Anyhoo, takeaways from the game, Troll are evil and need to die early on. I had far too much fun with the “Firey Balls” spell (genuine name – I expect @warzan will rock that every game), and I should have beefed up the gobbos command unit like I did with their other units – 1 combat, all dead to I believe no reply…

Unfortunately no pics – just plane forgot, besides all were unpainted. Planning on using my day off today to buy some superglue and get closer to priming.

TTFN

As I promised Torros, here are a couple of comparisons between MM and Pendraken’s Dwarf models.

In the long line up we have 2 characters based for KoW from MM, next are 3 Pendraken axe wielding chaps. Next are two Pendraken Box/ranger models, 2 Pendraken spear dwarves, and finally 2 MM dwarves with guns.

I have also done a close up of 2 hammer wielding dwarves, the one on the left is Pendraken, and the other is MM’s.

I feel that Pendraken’s are stockier, and a couple are a bit more cartoon-y (such as the spear chaps). MM’s are smaller and perhaps not as “flavour-full”. The main difference is in the bases – Pend’s have a larger lump of metal which makes them take up more space and stand taller straight from the box. I know this can (and will) be dremelled for use but its an annoying additional step I dont have to make with MM’s

So i have started basing the infantry on small washers courtesy of The range – however what to do about creatures and cav…

Luckily for me I work opposite a nut and bolt unit – I guess supplying to “trade” so I took a walk at lunchtime and the the princely sum of 50p… I have 20 larger washers in two sizes.

Why 2 sizes I can’t hear you cry? Because I couldn’t make up my mind and rather than continue to baffle the two old boys running this rather serious looking emporium I figured I would retire to my lair/desk to see what I felt like.

Pics bellow of the options, the smaller bases are obviously a slightly better fit for the footprint but will offer no protection go manes etc. They also have a larger hole.

but are the bigg’uns too big? Thoughts anyone? I might try dremmeling the larger ones into more of an oval but my diy skills are poor and I would prefer the pick up and use option…

So in today’s live chat, (13/02/19) Torros and I exchanged a couple of comments regarding 10mm fantasy figs by Magister Millitum . I happened to have some of their Dwarves and Gobbos that I originally bought for 10mm Kings of War but have never gotten round to painting (like most of my collection). This is them, and this seemed to be the easiest method of showing the models o’natural.

Maybe I might even get to a point where paint is applied…

So, most of the models are from MM, the trolls are I believe Pendraken’s, as is the larger dwarf with the hammer. The two ranges are not overly compatible, but meh. I find Pendrakens to be chunkier and have bigger bases, but you lose the legs on them so while MM’s have less “presence” they were the chaps for me in the main.